Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Sept. 20 WorldNetDaily article by Brian Fitzpatrick on the demise of the Judson Phillips-organized National Tea Party Convention planned for Las Vegas in October gives free rein to spin the heck out of the demise while omitting crucial information and disclosures.
Fitzpatrick notes that "there were insufficient ticket sales to continue plans for the event" but allows Phillips -- the only person Fitzpatrick apparently talked to and the only person quoted -- to blame it on the "Obama economy."
One must go elsewhere for information on the full story behind the demise. Fitzpatrick doesn't see fit to report, as Talking Points Memo did in beating WND to the story by several hours, that there was opposition to the convention among tea party groups in Nevada, and one even planned to boycott and publicly protest the convention over concerns with the legitimacy of Phillps' organziation, Tea Party Nation.
Fitzpatrick also failed to report that the convention had originally been scheduled for July, and then postponed until October, even though WND reported the schedule change at the time.
Fitzpatrick even omits mention of a couple corportate conflicts of interest: WND editor Joseph Farah was scheduled to speak at the original convention and his bio appeared on the convention's website before it was scrubbed (here it is in Google cache). Also, Phillips has become something of a WND columnist (albeit a factually challenged one) -- he even has a column on today's WND commentary page.
You may recall that WND provided wall-to-wall fawning coverage of Phillips' first Tea Party Nation convention in February, which Farah just happened to speak at.
